I wasn’t even sure what to title this, “my broken feet” -> I thought that would be a bit too heavy, “update on my foot problem” -> this would mean I have mentioned it before and while I have, I feel I haven’t gone in depth, so The Results of My Foot Problems seemed best. Actually I feel I had a better title in my head but now can’t remember it. 

[warning: this post is a long one but I hope you will stick around]

Yesterday I went to the foot doctor, but let’s back up a few months ago.

Back in May I was working out at least 6 days a week and some days I would do 2 workouts. I was doing this because I enjoyed it. One workout would be weights and one yoga or something like that. I felt really good and I did attempt to run almost a mile one day. Then I had an awesome Yoga on the Steps event. That day was COLD! I took my socks off only during our practice but my feet were quite cold. I was stiff. 2 days later, I was walking to the train station and suddenly my right foot was in pain on the inner part and the arch. So painful, in fact, I was kinda pushing through and limping a bit on it. So I stepped back from my workouts. I took it easy for about 3 weeks. I stopped going to Zumba. I used my yoga tune up balls to massage my feet pretty regularly. The arch pain went away after about a week, but there was still pain if I went on the ball of my foot, especially if I was in downdog split lifting my left leg so my right foot was on the ground. That is the one exercise and jumping of any sort is what seemed to trigger the pain.

In June I finally saw a foot doctor. By this point, most of the pain was gone. I couldn’t even pinpoint where the pain was at this appointment. Every day it seemed to shift. Some days it wouldn’t bother me at all. I got my first ever foot xrays and she looked them over and didn’t find anything. She pushed and poked my feet, not really any pain. I had also taken 3 full rest days before the appointment. She thought it could be tendonitis, told me to continue to stay away from Zumba and take it easy for the next 3-4 weeks.

I continued to listen to my body, pay attention to my foot, did this hurt it? Did that? I felt like a little kid when you get a bruise and you want to see if it’s healing so you keep poking it wondering if the pain is gone yet. It continued to improve and then my July vacation came. The weekend before my vacation though I had walked 4 miles with a friend. Walking past 2 miles my foot felt a little off, but mostly OK. The next couple of days however, my foot ached. My left foot (not the injured one) was sore but not as sore as the right. The right foot definitely took longer to recover, a couple days into my vacation actually.

While we had quite a bit of walking during vacation, we also had a lot of driving and sitting. I didn’t do any other exercising either. That week off I felt was just what my foot needed.

I returned and slowly got back into routine. However, a couple weeks into my regular routine and sometimes my foot was aching again. Like it wouldn’t bother me during the workout, but the after effect of the workout, I would be laying in bed and could feel right under the big toe, a slight ache. I don’t know how pain tolerant I am, but on a scale of 0 to 10, 10 being extremely painful, I would only rate my pain at maybe a 2. Honestly it was more of an annoyance and not super painful. When I walked around, it wouldn’t bother me, but the area did feel tender to me and sometimes after walking a lot, it would almost feel like I was walking on something like something was stuck to the bottom of my foot. It was strange.

So here we are in August and I decided to make the call last week for another follow up. I just knew that something was off. I knew that it could be taking extra long to heal because I walk a lot. My daily commute round trip includes 3 miles of walking.

I got to the doctor’s office just trying to not be too nervous. They called me back and took a different variation of an xray. I basically had to do a lunge with my right foot on the xray machine so they could see the sesamoids. I will tell you it was quite entertaining with the 2 assistants to get the perfect xray but apparently I have one thing going for me, my feet are flexible enough that on the second try, we got an awesome xray (I wish I had taken a pic of it).

The assistants were literally so excited that is the only xray they took. I guess the doctor was expecting the same ones we took last time too, but she just used the last ones to get the different angle views. A little poking and proding and this time I could clearly identify the sensitive area. She asked me how much pain I was in sitting there. On the scale, it was a 0. I had no pain sitting there. It is really only when it is poked in that one spot and sometimes after exercising.

So she zoomed into the new xray, said she might see a tiny chip and maybe a fracture is healing on one of the sesamoids. To give you an example of where that is, here is an xray from online and happens to be pointing to the sesamoid that I probably have injured. 

She got another doctor’s opinion and gave me some options. Knowing nothing about foot injuries, I asked for the best recommendation. So the recommendation was a shot in my foot and a medical shoe. I hate shots no matter where they are, but I am also motivated to get this foot taken care of and do what I need to do. Learning that maybe there was something almost slightly comforts me because it confirms I am not crazy and here I am listening to my body the best I can and just trying to heal as quickly as possible. I don’t want to drag it out further by trying anti inflammatory medications and THEN still needing a shoe. I have accepted this is where I am.

So first she froze the area around my foot with some spray. She was honest and said the shot would hurt. Really I think the freezing hurt so much the shot wasn’t as bad. I just focused on my breath and soon it was done.

Then to add to that, Brian noticed a small wart on my left foot last week. It hasn’t been causing me any pain, but nevertheless it needs to be taken care of. I used some over the counter stuff last week for a couple days but I guess I didn’t use it long enough. She put some stronger stuff on it and taped the bandaid on because my feet were sweaty. I mean they are sweaty on a normal day but being nervous and scared in the chair with that shot they were sweating even more.

I was then fitted for a stiff shoe and will be wearing it for 3 weeks. Since it appears to be healing and has been going on a while it is 3 weeks instead of 6. I am praying and hopeful that this is the answer and solution.

I think the most frustrating thing is I don’t know what caused it. I tried a new type of shoe from March to May and they were more flexible so maybe that caused it. Maybe I was doing too many workouts even though I felt fantastic. Maybe it was that one time I tried to run. I don’t know but I have gone back to my Asics that I love and have been wearing for 8 years without an issue. To me, they seem to provide enough cushion. Any sort of running will have to wait. I have never been a runner, but it’d be really awesome to work up to running a full 5k one day. I think I should tackle a 1 mile run first though. Baby steps and I know that is not happening anytime soon.

Things I am thankful for in this time:

• That I listened to my body and I made that call for a doctor appt
• Reading running blogs ( I may not run but I, for some reason, love reading blogs about runners and sometimes they have injuries too and while injury is something we all would like to avoid, I learn from their injuries and that gives me more hope that I will come back from this strong(er) )
• It’s only 3 weeks (it could be longer, I mean hopefully at 3 weeks it can come off and I won’t have longer to go. I am hopeful about the 3 weeks being good for my foot to rest and heal)
• I like to stay on the floor and crawl around my apartment (did you need to know this? Umm…maybe not. Anyway I had to leave work early and so I brought my work laptop home and I work on the floor and crawling is something I can do still)
• Modified workouts ( truth: Susie was the first person I texted when I found out I was going to be in a shoe and I know she has experience with modifying workouts so I can trust her, yay for blog friends)
• Swimming (I can still swim as it doesn’t bother my foot)

So this is a long post and if you made it this far, thank you. Also I would love to ask, if you have any experience with 1 foot workouts (modifications) or any stretch recommendations post shoe, please comment with them. I am new to this and hope it is the only time, but I am hopeful. Thank you bloggers out there that spread those positive vibes. I was scared and a bit emotional last night and had to write this before returning to my actual work, but I am feeling better getting this out. Also I hope you take away from this how important it is to be in tune with your body. It is actually from things I have read and from friends experiences that I got this looked at and was still concerned. It is important to consult a doctor when you are concerned. Hey it might turn out to be nothing and other times, it’s something, but I think it is better to have an answer and not to make anything worse.

Any comments on modifications or stretches to do post shoe, etc welcome